Blog posts

We're having fun on the farm! With the Mother's Day picnic coming up I decided to bake my own version of a filled braid. I admired the fruit filled braids and loved Floyd's suggestion that a savory filling with a different dough would be good. A search of the BBA formulas led me to use Pain de Campagne because it is said to be suited to shaped loaves; never disappoints. I followed Reinhart's steps with the exception that I used an overnight retarding of the dough after the first partial rise to better fit my schedule.

I started my day off making french bread from some yeast pre-ferments from last night. 

After mixing, folding and so on, I figured I am not going to try anything fancy I just want rustic looking bread (ugly bread that is). 

And I am happy with the results of my ugly breads.

Funny how the rye discussions have popped up in the last couple of days. I'd been planning to make the New York Deli Rye from the BBA this weekend. I couldn't find white rye flour locally, and had to mail order some. The bread turned out very different from those I've made with dark rye. Looks great for sandwiches. The book calls for sauteed onions in the starter (which I'd probably like), but I chose to omit them to see what the straight bread is like.

I'm just getting a break in the action and able to post after several days away from The Fresh Loaf. I'll never get caught up with the new content; my loss! This past weekend I made a couple of breads with long fermentations to fit into a schedule of Kentucky Derby and NBA Playoffs. I used Bwraith's version of Sourdough Raisen Focaccia with tasty results!

Sourdough Raisen Focaccia

Mini Oven and Eric,

Maybe the world is smaller than I think!

There are some professors at Tech whom I remember very clearly.  One is David Cimino, who taught a couple of my Physics courses.  He really could draw a perfect circle, about 2 feet in diameter,  on the blackboard.  Pretty amazing to watch.  The name Hanner sounds vaguely familiar but I don't think I had any classes with an instructor by that name.  I never did meet a Bornhorst, although I watched Bruce Horst in the nets for the hockey Huskies.  Probably doesn't count, eh?

I am going to have to stop reading this blog during the day time while I am at work.  It is very difficult to maintain a proper decorum while I am rolling on the floor laughing!

Old Camp Cook 

I think it was Susan that begged for bubbles. :>) Well here it is! My basic SD bread formula slashed with custom sharpened cookie cutters!

Eric

This is my Hubbard Sunflower Sourdough Boule it is an adaptation of Nancy Silverton's Pumpkin Bread in Bread from LaBrea Bakery.

The taste is wonderful. It has a bit of Cumin in it and raw sunflower seeds of course -and I used my last Hubbard taken up from the root cellar from last summer -under the right conditions those beauties last forever!